Ranboo caught Technoblade before he could hit the ground.

It helped that the piglin had been slowing down his strides, swaying on his feet. And he hadn't been answering any of Ranboo's questions over the past five minutes of walking. Ranboo thought he'd been concentrating – listening for more hunters, more dogs sniffing out their trail.

But nope, it was just the blood loss taking its toll.

Ranboo would be angry at himself for not noticing sooner if it wasn't that, well, his ankle had been in considerable pain for a while and his head hurt from taking a tumble down the hill. His brain felt weird, foggy. He felt as if he was forgetting something important, or several things important. Concentrating was more effort than it was worth. He reeled it all in though. It was hard, forcing himself to focus on the present. He was tired and hungry and itchy too now with the dirt and bugs of the forest. And he would give anything for a proper bath and a good night's sleep in his own bed for once. But he still mentally slapped himself to stop getting distracted, there were bigger fish to fry.

They were so close, they couldn't fail now. They were almost free and he couldn't give up hope. Because Technoblade was stumbling and faltering and then he dropped. Ranboo squeaked in panic, barely managing to catch him.

He lowered Techno carefully, pulling his prone body under the shade of a tree and laying him out somewhat smoothly. His chest was rising and falling steadily and while his skin was clammy and hot to the touch, it wasn't a fever comparable to the drug-induced delirium from a few weeks ago. Ranboo knew the likely cause. He stretched out Techno's leg and untied the rag from his thigh. The area around the cut was reddened, the wound leaking a whitish-yellow pus. Inflammation had spread through the entire limb already.

Ranboo cringed. Out of spare cloth, he ripped a part from the bottom of his shirt instead – the cleanest part he could find. Then he used drinking water from the flask to rinse the worst of the pus away, reapplying a temporary bandage. Techno's eyelids started fluttering open when he was almost done with the procedure.

There was a disgruntled mutter Ranboo couldn't quite understand. He doubted they'd been proper words. Techno shifted, pulled his leg up then immediately seemed to regret the decision with a full-body flinch. He put it back down again.

"Did I faint?" he asked slowly, and if Ranboo didn't know any better he'd say Techno sounded embarrassed. Mortified even.

Which was especially funny seeing as they'd been sharing a room. Ranboo had treated Techno's injuries and Techno had sewn his wounds closed and wiped the blood from his hands and when Techno was sick they shared a bed because it was easier. But fainting in the middle of the forest while they were on the run from a group of people very much out to kill them – that was where Technoblade drew the line?

And maybe it was the absurdity of this realization that lead to Ranboo laughing.

"Yeah, yeah you did. How did you put it? Very impressive actually." Seeing Techno scowl in response only made his giggling worse.

"Have you considered that maybe you're just too heavy for me to lug around?"

"Have you considered that maybe letting a leg wound openly fester isn't the best idea?"

The humor on Techno's face fell away rather quickly then. "You sound like Phil."

"Well, Phil is probably right if he tells you to take better care of yourself."

"Probably," Techno said.

And whatever fell into the gaps between what Ranboo thought and what he said, he left there. He wouldn't argue about it, he wouldn't question it. But it was the kind of thing he noticed and thought about and then lay awake thinking more about and then he filed it away for later – or wrote it down in his memory book.

Sometimes, when the water had burned him because of his own carelessness, when it started raining and Ranboo couldn't bother to cover himself, when he thought pain wasn't the greatest burden to bear for his family and friends to be happy and safe, Tubbo would catch Ranboo's hands in his own and ask in the tiniest, most smothered voice why he didn't take better care of himself. Why he would put other people's safety in front of his own.

So maybe the real reason Ranboo didn't ask was because he already knew the answer.

"How long ago did the message go out?" Techno asked. The communicator wouldn't turn on anymore, completely without power. He was asking for Ranboo to make an estimation.

He looked upward at the sky, where the sun was sitting high in its daily travel. "A day ago? I'd say. Think it's close to noon."

"We should be getting closer to the server's center," Techno said. He leaned up on his elbows, forcing himself into an upright position.

Ranboo put both hands on his shoulders, ready to push him down. "Wait, are you even good to walk again?"

"I'll have to be," Techno shot back. "It won't do either of us any good to have Phil wander around aimlessly when he gets here. We'll just die waiting around."

"Yeah, but-" Ranboo changed tactics so quickly he almost experienced whiplash. "Okay, fine. Lean on me?"

They managed to get Techno back on his feet. Or rather, on his foot. Instead of using the injured leg for support, Techno seemed glad to drag it behind them in favor of using Ranboo as a crutch. It was an awkward way to move around, a clumsy and loitering gait. But they were up and they were moving and Ranboo was satisfied.

Because staying was a bad idea.

He didn't know why he thought that, he didn't know how he knew. Sometimes he wondered if he had some strange sort of guardian deity looking over him – just one that only spoke in enigmas and declined to give proper explanations for the strange forebodings that befell Ranboo.

If he angled his ear back and tilted his chin, he could almost hear the distant sound of the hunters pinning them down, driving them into a trap.

(But they had no choice, they would have to go forward. Even if it meant falling into their snare)

"R-remember when you promised me everything would be fine?" Ranboo asked. Techno's claws curled into his arm for leverage as he dragged himself forward. Step after excruciating step. "That you would make sure nothing happened to me? And I'd get out of this alive?"

"Vaguely, yeah." Techno grimaced, taking another step. They were slow, so slow, too slow. Ranboo felt the nervous cold sweat dripping down the back of his neck. "Not verbatim but something similar, I remember."

"It works the other way too." At Techno's heh? of confusion Ranboo chuckled and hoisted the piglin's arm better onto his grip. "I've uh, I've decided! I'm going to get you out of here too. I won't let anything bad happen anymore. I promise."

"Oh-" Techno grunted in pain, gritted his teeth before he could finish his sentence. "You know... I can keep you to that. We'll keep each other to it."

"Yeah," Ranboo decided. He could hear the noises closing in, approaching quicker. Drawing the noose closed. "We'll keep each other to it."